Seth Lipsky and Ira Stoll assembled their staff for a Champagne toast to mass death on the commencement of hostilities against Iraq. Stoll called it "my war." CNN maintains a running update here of Americans killed in Ira's war.

On February 6, 2003, Seth Lipsky and Ira Stoll wrote, in all seriousness, of a pending anti-war demonstration that the "the New York City police could do worse, in the end, than to allow the protest and send two witnesses along for each participant, with an eye toward preserving at least the possibility of an eventual treason prosecution."

The June 9, 1995 Wall Street Journal quoted an SEC complaint against New York Sun backer Bruce Kovner as saying Kovner had "altered and destroyed" subpoenaed evidence. We wish you'd do the same to the daily print run of your God-awful newspaper, Bruce.

Also, Professor G. Harlan Reynolds alleged on August 27, 2002 - when the Sun was several months in publication - that Seth Lipsky and Ira Stoll had not yet paid him for a piece authored for their inaugural issue.

It's been a long and tiring year, but a fulfilling one, too, and we look forward to providing the public service of reading the Sun so no one else has to as long as the Sun lasts. So in other words about eight months.

Happy birthday to us. Yes, one calendar year ago - a few days before the curtains would part and Seth and Ira's farce would commence - we launched Like Father Like Sun. We originally intended a data dump chronicling the slimy financial practices and anti-democratic politics of the "newspaper's" backing plutocrats. We quickly ran to distraction when the paper hit newsstands, so breathtakingly bad it was. If I had received even minimum wage pay for the hours I've since spent poring over SethAndIra's latrine paper, deciphering Bill Mauldin's pyroglyphics, keeping the votive candles burning so that Rachel Donadio may at last find her perfect couch, and typing these shitty dispatches, well, dear readers, I'd be midway down the path to Kovnerdom.

So Brad Olson, Quentin Robinson, myself, and the two part-time LFLS enablers who wish to remain anonymous congratulate ourselves one year of resistance to SethAndIra's toxins. As a show of thanks to those who follow this site, we hereby introduce a new semi-daily feature for our semi-intelligent readers: One Year Ago in "X", whereas "X" represents a paper of our choosing with which we have neither ideological or personal continuity. In this regard, it is similar to SethAndIra's "100 Years Ago in the Sun." Let us begin:

Portland Oregonian, April 10, 2002: After 10 years of critically lauded performances, the Portland International Performance Festival -- PIPfest -- was cut loose in January by sponsoring Portland State University because of the university's budget squeeze. But the festival is having one more hurrah through Monday, swinging its focus toward Hungary and its exciting theater scene.

Just to add to what Quentin wrote (hey, where are my taxes, kid?), the Sun does indeed come out fighting like a rat backed into a corner, propping up its beloved Ahmad Chalabi. In the advertorial titled “Who Is Ahmad Chalabi?”, Sethandira describe Chalabi as:

“a man who has nursed the dream of liberating Iraq from the clutches of Baathist thugs and murderers for decades . . . His detractors conjure relatively few criticisms of the man, one of them being that he has lived for so long outside of Iraq---he fled in 1958 after the royal family’s overthrow---that he has no support on the Iraqi street.”

We’ll set aside the fact that, having fled in 1958, Chalabi hasn’t lived in Iraq since he was 13 years old. And the fact that, according to numerous reports, he does not in fact have support on the Iraqi street. AND the fact that his “decades” long dream apparently started around 1991. It is the statement that “His detractors conjure relatively few criticisms of the man” that is truly striking. How can these two excuses for journalists possibly write that sentence without mentioning the fact that Chalabi was convicted of stealing $70 million from Jordanian investors? Sethandira could have mentioned the charges and then said “he probably didn’t do it” (even though he did), or say the charges were trumped up (even though they weren’t), but to not mention them at all is beautiful, a Soviet-style altering of history.

All hail Ahmad Chalabi! Sethandira say "our impression is that Mr. Chalabi has created over the years an impressive network of intelligence and political contacts inside of Iraq." Too bad they don't include the ones that count. Their flailing editorial is called "Who Is Ahmad Chalabi?" This is a question that no doubt about 20 Iraqis will have the opportunity to ponder, before the neocon nitwits' favorite son has to turn tail with his "freedom fighters" and run back to the U.S. Maybe he can crash at Ira's place.

"Mr. Chalabi, in other words, has all the right enemies. The reason that crowd dislikes him is simple: he is not one of them. He’s independent-minded, secular, democratic, and loves liberty," the idiotorial concludes, naming among his "enemies" George Tenet, Kenneth Pollack, and "Thos." (what the fuck?) Friedman. No, he's not one of them. They're all successful, and people listen to what they have to say, and want to talk to them. Maybe it's good to have the right enemies (strange way to measure political success, that), but Mr. Chalabi is sure in deep shit if sethandiranistan is his only ally.

Today the Sun’s Adam Daifallah climbs the mountain and bows at the feet of the Sun’s Chosen One, Ahmad Chalabi. Rugged Adam (Turn-ons: Margaret Thatcher, Canada) describes Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress sending their “700 Iraqi freedom fighters” into the fray as a “victory for Mr. Chalabi and the democratic Iraqi opposition, who have pleaded for weeks for a greater role.” Last night on 60 Minutes, Lesley Stahl also promoted the vision of Chalabi The Unifier, Chalabi The Freedom Fighter, although only Stahl had the poor taste to point out that in Iraq, no one knows who Chalabi is.

Of course, what neither Stahl nor Daifallah (oops! wrong link!) point out is that Chalabi is VERY well known in Jordan. The fact that he did not become such an ardent Iraqi freedom fighter until 1991, two years after his conviction, is not relevant either, so please stop asking about it.